Visa Run - Pattaya to Sihanoukville Read Free Page A

Sir Alex Ferguson would have been proud of. I never stood a chance. To emphasize a point she was making, Poo jerked a disdainful thumb at her own farang , who blissfully unaware, was sunning himself by the side of the pool and trying to work out where all his holiday cash was going.
    “He has a photograph of me in his wallet,” said Poo proudly, straightening up a new, chunky gold ring with an expensively manicured hand. “Where his money used to be.”
    From experience, I quickly realized I was left with three choices. I could either listen to Jai complaining day and night for the remaining four months of my stay (and believe me, Poo had coached her to such an extent she could now moan for Thailand) or I could pay her off with some of that folding paper stuff she had previously insisted she no interest in. Indeed, it was remarkable how in such a short space of time “I love you, teelac , I not want your money, I want stay with you, I not like work bar,” had become, “Poo tell me you very keeniaw , she say other farang give me big money/motorcycle/house/land/bar” (just insert the appropriate act of generosity, all were mentioned scores of times every day).
    I have always been of the opinion we don’t spend enough time on this planet to waste precious days listening to the incessant strains of a wailing bar-girl, so I decided to take the second option. I would cut my losses and draw out a wad of cash that would hopefully be enough to compensate Jai for the time Poo had convinced her she had wasted on me (minus a few disputed expenses, of course). I would then be able to gently but firmly give Jai her marching orders without things becoming too messy; as is often the case in the breakdown of Pattaya romances. Sexist perhaps—selfish, certainly—but even so, I would hope even the most politically correct of feminist readers might have at least a little sympathy after hearing Jai hammering away at the drums in my ears with the resonance and volume of a Caribbean steel band. And any fellow male who has ever fallen out with his Thai girl and had the magic of romance driven from his heart by skilfully engineered sulking sessions and the phenomenon of that previously warm and sweetly surrendering dove-like girl suddenly developing a shoulder as cold as a frozen ham every time he fancies getting his leg over, will certainly be in my corner.
    The third option would be to kick Jai out penniless. This was a non-starter. Having already witnessed the formidable temper that lurks just beneath the thin veneer of even the sweetest of an Isaan girl’s outward serenity, I had no desire to incur the wrath of a screaming Thai demon. No doubt Poo would have told Jai exactly what to do should I fail to come across with the expected recompense and I had no wish to view the results of her recent education. If hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, then Pattaya certainly hath no hiding place from a prostitute unpaid. And sadly, that was exactly what Poo had taught Jai to become. I had also noticed—with considerable concern—how Jai had recently become a little too friendly with the toughest and meanest of the motorcycle taxi drivers who plied their trade from the rank opposite the Happy Home. So it was going to have to be pay-off time, and like so many other long-staying farang men in Pattaya, not for the first time I promised myself that never again would I allow the charms of a fresh new bar-girl to affect my sanity and destroy the very freedom I had come to the city for. Well—not until the next time, anyway.
    On top of the annoyance and expense of having to bung Jai a good slice of my ever-dwindling wedge to get rid of her, I also had the inconvenience of a visa run to look forward to in five days time. Visa runs! What a pain in the arse! Every three months, for those foreign residents not yet ancient or affluent enough to apply for a retirement visa, the immigration laws in Thailand make it necessary to leave the country and